Imperfect Picture
by crankyhermit
Summary: Arthur finds a picture in a photo-booth. Modern AU.
1. Chapter 1

******Imperfect Picture  
**

Arthur sees it when he sits down and tries to find a clean spot to put down his briefcase. A photograph, overturned and overlooked in a dusty corner of the cramped booth, abandoned. Some whim makes him reach down and pick it up, dust it off and turn it over.

It is a young man, dark-haired, pale-skinned, startled and laughing at the intrusion of a grinning, bearded mouth in the corner of the picture and a hand on his shoulder. His head is slightly turned to the other man in a familiar attitude, though Arthur can't say if he thinks it is familiar because he has seen it somewhere before or because the look is directed at someone the man knows well.

Outside, someone clears their throat impatiently. He hesitates, then drops the photograph in a pocket without really knowing why, slots in the coins and has his picture taken.

******End**  



	2. Chapter 2

**Picture this  
**

It's nothing, really, not at first. The sounds of shouting and a thump of bodies hitting the grass draws Arthur's eyes to the children playing ball in the school field he walks past daily. But as he turns away, he catches a glimpse of a smile, half-recalled, in the corner of his vision.

By the time it registers and he turns back, there are only faceless strangers hurrying by, and he realises he isn't even sure what the other looks like and why it is important.

The picture he'd picked up by whim and chance hadn't lasted long enough for a second look. A week after the interview that day, an unseen man laughing uproariously at another table in his favourite pub had recalled the picture to his mind for some reason. When he checked on reaching home, he found only what he had expected - he'd thrown the coat in the washing machine on reaching home, and all that was left was a lump of mashed paper in a corner of his pocket.

It becomes maddening, the fragments of uncertain memory snagging his attention at unpredictable intervals. A dark-haired head in the group leaving the restaurant as he enters. A broad back shouldering a battered backpack at the corner newsstand his bus passes on his way to the office. A gangling young man bent over tying his shoelaces on the street.

The images that catch his eyes become more random, more detailed. A boy slings an arm over his mate's shoulders and points out a kestrel in the sky. There is a girl with smooth dark skin and curly hair reading the label on a can of pea soup at the supermarket while he grabs a jar of pickles to go with his eggs at breakfast, and he doesn't know why he notices her except that he does and he has to force himself to stop staring like a perverted stalker.

When he finally sees the man in the photograph again, he isn't even sure at first if he's only imagining it, or if the smiling dark-haired man is really standing outside the cafe with his hands tucked into the pockets of his shabby coat. "Hi," he thinks about telling the man, "I found your picture in a photo booth, and now everything reminds me of you."

Fortunately, before Arthur has a chance to walk out and reveal himself as crazy and obsessed, someone else steps into the picture: the man who had invaded the original photo. Not that Arthur can say why he is certain it is the same man, because all he had seen in the picture was a grinning mouth and a hand - a Cheshire man, as it were.

The intruder slaps his mystery man's shoulder and laughs, throwing back his head with a careless flip of shaggy, too-long hair that irritates Arthur for some reason.

Arthur turns up the collar on his coat and steps out the cafe, fully intending to walk past and not acknowledge them like he is a perfectly normal person who doesn't pick up random photographs dropped by strangers and absolutely does not become fixated on the unsuspecting subject of the photograph, but the man raises his head and sees Arthur when he tries to brush past them, and the wide, gormless smile that had been on his face falls away like - like he'd seen something he hadn't wanted to. Someone. That someone being Arthur. Arthur stops.

The intruder also turns to look at what has completely shattered his friend's happiness, and only looks confused on seeing Arthur. "What's the matter, Merlin?" asks the other man, which reassures Arthur that at least he isn't going to discover a secret society of people who hate him without his ever having met them.

"Yes, what's the matter, Merlin," Arthur drawls, feeling a little belligerent and defensive.

The man, Merlin, sighs and wilts a little. He throws his arms around his friend for a brief hug, then steps back. "It's nothing. Go ahead and meet with the others first, Gwaine, I'll catch up in a minute." Gwaine frowns, gives Arthur a wary once-over, then nods and leaves. Arthur supposes that he should be glad that Gwaine doesn't think he looks like a dangerous psychopath.

"Well?" Arthur pushes after a moment of awkward silence. "You know me."

Merlin gives him a soft, familiar look that tugs at something in him he can't define. "I used to live for you, you know," he says, with a wry crook of his mouth. "You were everything to me. You defined my world."

That has to be a lie. Arthur has never met him before, and he doesn't want, would never ask that of anyone. But he says instead, "What happened?" He takes a step closer, without meaning to, Merlin retreats a step without seeming to notice.

"You went away and I learnt to live without you. And I can't go back to that, living for you like nothing else matters. I've got my own life now," he says with a terrifying finality, forestalling the protest Arthur hadn't planned to make. "Cheers, mate. Have a good life."

"I don't even know you," Arthur shouts after Merlin's retreating back, feels like kicking something at the ridiculousness, at feeling this loss over someone he saw in a photograph once.

"Better that way," Merlin says, moving on, and then he turns his head a little and glances back at him, and that is enough for Arthur. He runs up and catches Merlin by the arm.

"Wait," he insists, jogging alongside Merlin as Merlin tries to tug free. Words he never thought about bubble to his lips. "I don't want you to live for me, I never did." Merlin hesitates, stops tugging. "Learn to live with me," he says. "Not _together_, I mean. Just, let me exist in your life."

Merlin laughs, once, shakes his head. Arthur lets go. "You want to meet the others?" Merlin asks then, and Arthur hurries to join him.

**End**

Written for the A Picture Is Worth 1000 words challenge.**  
**


End file.
